Mountains - Air Museum (2011)

Submitted on Tue, 04/26/2011 - 10:34

Mountains is Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp, two sonic explorers whose long history, shared philosophies, and love of sculpting sound, has resulted in some of the most densely layered and blissful music crafted in recent memory. The duo is known for obscuring the boundaries between acoustic instrumentation and electronics. Their debut Thrill Jockey release Choral was universally critically acclaimed, has nearly sold through three LP pressings, and ended up being one of the label's best selling releases of 2009, a remarkable achievement.

"Air Museum" blurs the lines between acoustic and electronic music even more without sacrificing melody or the delicacy of their sound. It is an album of firsts. It was the first album that the acoustic instruments were not processed via a computer. Instead, the processing of the instrumentation (acoustic and electric guitar, cello, accordion, piano, bass etc.) was done using a variety of pedals, modular synths, and other analog techniques. While acoustic instruments were used extensively, the album manifests itself sonically as their most ''electronic'' record yet. Air Museum is also their first record that was made in a studio. Working in the studio expanded their possibilities, giving more room for experimentation. While much of the album was recorded in real time with minor editing, the band took the opportunity to utilize the studio as an instrument of sorts, investing a great amount of time in customizing their approach to post-production.